Stage 4: Zambujeira do Mar to Odeceixe (23 km)

17°C — Rain showers with intermittent sun

By Jim

We set our alarm for 6:00 a.m. to get an early start, in order to avoid the heat of the day.  However, heat would not be an issue because it started to rain before we got out of town. Laurel tried out her new rain poncho. I was wet and envious as I had scratched my poncho in Canada to make room for my Leafs shirt.

Today we pushed ourselves to our limits and saw some strange and wondrous sights. The rain was steady when we approached the trailhead near the beach, south of town.  Two obstacles stood in our way.  The first was a creek.  The wet weather had transformed it from a shallow “hop, skip and jump” into a “slip, trip, and splash.”  As we pondered the low probability of a dry crossing, Laurel surveyed the obstacle that lay on the other side, a slick steep trail of slate and mud!  We both agreed that a detour was in order and Pocket Earth, our trail map app, dutifully guided us back to the FT after a bit of road walking.

The grey sky lightened, the rain stopped, and we fell into a routine of the trail that serpentined between breathtaking sandy shoreline cliffs and fragrant forests of wattle and eucalyptus.  While deep in the forest we had a surreal moment as ostrich, zebra, antelope, and llamas all came into view — we soon realized the trail was adjacent to a wild animal park.

Our second detour of the day came at the advisement of the Rota Vicentina Trust.  A portion of the cliffside trail had collapsed a year ago and was still unsafe, so the path now guided us along a 5 km stretch of pavement to the coastal village of Azenha do Mar.

After a second breakfast in a local bar (luckily it was open on Good Friday), we went to the beach to join the FT cliffside trail.  In hindsight, this should have been our third detour of the day but sunshine and sea breeze had dried out the path here, so we joined the queue of young fit Germans ascending the trail.  The path was designed by daredevil goats and we soon realized that we were not young, fit, or German (scheiße!).   Doubt lowered our confidence, as well as Laurel’s center of gravity, as she adopted a gekko-like posture and crawled her way to the summit propelled by a mixture of cortisol and adrenaline.  This was a harbinger for what would follow an hour later when the trail descended and ascended a steep, rocky gorge.  All I can say is, we made it and we are still speaking to each other.

Our final descent was gentle, as was the rain, when we walked into Odeceixe.  Monkfish stew and vinho verde at a small restaurant were restorative and our hostel provided a quiet haven for deep and peaceful sleep.